Ghana News Agency

Monday 30th May, 2016

By
Lydia Asamoah, GNA
Accra, May 30, GNA -
The Martin Luther King Health Training School in Accra, with the School of Allied
Health, University of Ghana, is to conduct an intensive breast cancer awareness
and education research to save more women from the disease.
The School has,
therefore, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Brookdale Community
College and Rutgers University in New Je

By
Lydia Asamoah, GNA

Accra, May 30, GNA -
The Martin Luther King Health Training School in Accra, with the School of Allied
Health, University of Ghana, is to conduct an intensive breast cancer awareness
and education research to save more women from the disease.

The School has,
therefore, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Brookdale Community
College and Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA, to undertake the research
within the Greater Accra and Ashanti Regions, as the first phase and later to
other parts of the country.

Dr Owusu Achaw Duah,
the Director of the School, who announced this at the Ninth Matriculation of
the School in Accra, said the Ministry of Health (MoH) had given approval to
the School to conduct the research.

It would be
conducted under a Fulbright Specialist Programme Grant that was awarded to a
Senior Professor of the Brookdale Community College and Rutgers University,
Professor Terry M. Konn.

Prof Konn, a
professor in Radiology and Public Health, is in the country to start the
research project, which the Health Training School has adopted as one of its
Women’s Research on Women’s Health.

At the Matriculation
ceremony that was themed: “A Skilled Health Professional, a Tool for Quality
Health Care,” a total of 203 students were enrolled into various programmes,
including Registered Nurse Assistant Clinicals, Laboratory Technicians
Programme and Health Careers.

Dr Duah said the
school’s main objective was to educate health professionals at both basic and
tertiary levels, as it charted a course for students who would be graduated to
become critical contributors to the health care force of the communities they
served and to the entire country.

He said the School
also had plans to upgrade the College Clinic into a teaching hospital status to
cater for the practical training of its students as the public hospitals, which
accommodated students for practical training were seriously choked.

“We also intend to
recruit some of our qualified students to work in our facilities as practicing
nurses and technicians and as research and teaching assistants,” Dr Duah
said.

He urged the MoH to
reconsider its decision of suspending the recruitment of privately trained
personnel as that could lead to the socio-economic hardships of such trained
personnel.

It would increase in
the exodus of trained health personnel seeking greener pastures, he said.

Mrs Hajia Balchisu
Iddrisu, the Principal of the Martin Luther Health Training School, said the
School continued to soar academically and that at the last Licensing
Examination in 2015, the school had 92 per cent passes.

“The school is
endowed with highly qualified and permanent tutors who are dedicated to teaching
students for positive results,” she said. “Academic work is taken seriously and
students are always encouraged to work hard both in theory and practice.”

She said one of the
School’s products won the Eastern Regional Best Nurse Award at this year’s
International Nurses Day, marked on May 12 in Accra. “This is a great
achievement for the School”.

Prof Terry Konn, who
gave the keynote address, said healthcare was a profession of honour and
honesty, therefore, students should learn hard to become healthcare
professionals who would work to restore the health of the sick, while educating
them in ways to improve their lives.

“Ghanaian women will
continue to die from breast cancer if you do not step up and teach them early
prevention and detection,” he said.

“More will die from
malnutrition, diabetes or heart diseases if you do not step up and educate them
of risk factors, signs and symptoms and ways to prevent these illnesses,"
Prof Konn said.